Sanitary survey of the State.

  • Massachusetts. General Court. House of Representatives
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sanitary survey of the State. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/40 (page 19)
    in 1847', . . . $6,631 20 and in 184S, . . . 7,102 00 All of this has been a profitable investment of public money, and has produced a satisfactory increase of agricultural products, by the improvement of vegetable and animal life. Your memorialists are of opinion, that, by a similar course, human life may be increased and improved, human strength may be augmented, human health elevated, the productive power of man materially enlarged, and his moral and intellectual force may be expanded, and life to him may be made more pure, rich, and joyous. As the Commonwealth now offers standing rewards, through competent and trustworthy channels, for improvements in animals and vegetables, or for such discov¬ eries as will increase their development and value, so rewards might be offered for similar improvements in human life, or in the means by which that life is sustained, and for such discov¬ eries as will lead to the enlargement of man’s existence. There are other considerations connected with this subject, which your memorialists will not, now and here, press upon the attention of your honorable bodies, formally of them are already set forth in the memorial of the American Statistical Association, which was presented to the Legislature of 1848, and which is now again recommended to your candid and serious attention. Your memorialists would not now designate any means to prevent disease, or to encourage human life; these will be sug¬ gested by the survey which they ask the Legislature to commence and to carry through; and, when this shall be done, then the way will be clear for such farther legislation, as the sanitary wants of the people may require, and as your successors, in their wisdom, may think proper to establish. JOHN WARE, President. C. G. PUTNAM, Recording Secretary. Boston, January 10th, 1848.